Living The Quran
From Issue: 1059 [Read full issue]
Beneficial and Logical
Al-Rum (The Romans) Sura 30: Verse 7
"They know but the outer surface of this world's life, but of the ultimate reality of the life to come, they are unaware."
This is the essential difference of "knowledge" between those who restrict it to sensory information and empiricism, and those who allow room for higher intellectual practices which may be represented in logic and art, as well as in philosophy and religion. Intuition is known to inspire supersensory art in various fields, and "creativity" is an essential requirement for a genuine artist. Even in science, relativity and potentiality have turned material existence into more than a thick and dry concretism. Human imagination, vision and abstract conceptualization have always inspired scientific progress.
Spirituality is an unmistaken character of the human nature and history, which has proved to be unignorable, indispensable and unsuppressible. Materialism failed to satisfy the human needs and aspirations of the individual and the society, and its productivity has been obviously hindered by the psychological and social limitations and defects. The belief in the One God and the eternal life to come secures balance and stability within the individual's own self and in the society as a whole, while selfishness and worldliness tear and swing him/her between the extremes of haughty success and desperate failure. Thus the belief is beneficial as well as logical.
Compiled From:
"Concepts of the Quran" - Fathi Osman, p. 272